Disable Bixby key coming soon to Note 9

If you are one of the new owners of the Samsung Galaxy Note 9, probably one of the things that you noticed about it is that the dedicated key for Bixby, the OEM’s digital assistant, is a little too sensitive. Even though you didn’t mean to, sometimes it would activate when you accidentally press or even just barely touch it. It looks like Samsung is responding to customer complaints about this as they will reportedly give users an option to disable the Bixby key.

There isn’t an official announcement yet from Samsung but when someone complained on Twitter about the sensitive Bixby button, the Samsung Germany account answered that the “deactivation of the Bixby button on lock screen should return until end of September.” The mention of the lock screen may be a mistake, but nevertheless, it’s good news for those annoyed by this button.

In the first place, the option to deactivate it should have been there right from the start. But Samsung may have wanted people to try out Bixby first for a few months before letting them deactivate it if they weren’t satisfied with the digital assistant. That’s also because they rolled out version 2.0 of Bixby which they say has better voice recognition and the ability for more natural conversation, which is always something that people look for now with AI assistants.

Bixby 2.0 is still only available for Galaxy Note 9 devices but the rollout may have already begun for some Galaxy S9 users. As to when it will reach other, older devices, that is still up in the air. And whether Bixby will finally be able to reach the levels of Google Assistant or Alexa, that is still anyone’s guess.

In the meantime, let’s wait if Samsung will make the disable option of the Bixby official anytime soon. For now, you’ll have to just make sure that you avoid accidentally touching it and activating it.